Last update - 00:00 06/09/2006
5 comments on the situation
By Yoel Marcus
1. At the swearing-in ceremony of the deputy president of the Supreme Court, the court's outgoing president, Aharon Barak, did something surprising. He lurched forward and grabbed President Moshe Katsav in a bear hug, a real squeezer, body to body, cheek to cheek. People couldn't believe it. But eyes don't lie and neither do cameras. It was the sumo wrestler type. They were so close you couldn't have inserted a toothpick between them.
So you were left wondering: Was there a kiss, too? Did he whisper sweet nothings into his ear - like, "Don't you know you don't do it at the office?" or "Don't tell me you French-kissed her!" or "Thank your lucky stars I'm not the attorney general. I forced Yitzhak Rabin to resign over less than that!"
Another possibility is that Barak shed a tear at the very thought of Katsav opening the winter session of the Knesset to the sound of trumpets blasting, with all the MKs rising to their feet. Could there be a Knesset worthier of such a spectacle, or such a president?
2. Under the headline, "A State in Panic," Maariv published some worrying statistics: "Could Israel face another surprise attack like the Yom Kippur War?" Some 65 percent of the people said yes. "Do you have faith in Israel's top political and defense leadership?" Around 70 percent of the people said no. "Was the disengagement a wise decision?" And 55 percent of the people said no. No wonder Ehud Olmert's popularity has plunged to 7 percent.
You can afford to make lots of mistakes, Golda Meir used to tell American presidents, but we can only make one. Lebanon War II was clearly one war too many. And now we're sitting on a time bomb in Gaza.
3. Lebanon War II has loosened the tongues of the officers, both reservists and those on active duty. The chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, Brigadier General Israel Weiss, pronounced the disengagement a mistake that Israel will never make again. Major General Yiftah Ron-Tal called the disengagement an act of suicide. He insists that the prime minister and chief of staff accept responsibility and resign. The chief of staff was right to send him packing. But how can we complain when the whole army is yakking its head off.
Dan Halutz himself says that the IDF's performance in the war in Lebanon was so-so, as if the baby weren't his. Another senior officer is warning Hezbollah not to put us to the test again. Why? What will we do? Bombard them with interviews? It's time the army got out of the headlines and went back to the barracks.
4. Some 10 years after Benjamin Netanyahu formally established it, the National Security Council has not met expectations, even with brains like Uzi Dayan, David Ivry, Ephraim Halevy and Giora Eiland sitting around the table. The trouble is that every government has some staff or bureau chief, some defense minister, some foreign minister, some Mossad director or some prime minister who doesn't like getting advice from committees that are overly intelligent. The state comptroller has complained about this, but maybe he's wrong.
Only in the American system, where the president is also the commander-in-chief of the army and presides over the executive branch of the government, or in a country with a democratic tradition of politically neutral civil servants like Great Britain, can a national defense council function. In the olden days, Israel's founders and leaders worked alone, calling in close personal advisors, who were also smart and knowledgeable, for ad-hoc consultations. They managed to build a glorious state that way, too. In a country of intrigue and cronyism, full of coalitions and dirty tricks and spin doctors, a council is only a waste of paper and ink.
5. Little by little, Ehud Olmert is falling back into the Golda Meir syndrome of "there's no one to talk to." He has backpedaled on the convergence ticket that won him the elections. He can't find a partner in the Palestinian camp. In response to Syrian President Bashar Assad's peace proposal, he says: "As long as I'm prime minister, the Golan will be ours forever." Maybe he thinks he will be in power forever.
Not only that, but this man we hung such high hopes on says a prime minister doesn't need an agenda. True to form, what was the government busy with this week, while the ground has been trembling in Gaza, Hassan Nasrallah is promising revenge and Condoleezza Rice has come to visit? Shifting responsibility for mental health care from the government to the health maintenance organizations.
What was it that the late finance minister Yigal Horowitz used to say? Get down from the roof, you crazies.